PartII: If a Blogger Blogs in the Blogosphere...

Posted by Tom Foremski - March 10, 2005

...does anybody blog it?

by Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcherIn the first part of this essay, I asked how will PR communications teams apply media relations to the blogosphere? The traditional methods of influence can't be applied to such a fragmented media landscape. (Part I is here.)

The normal means of spin-control cannot be applied either, because in this new world where everyone can be a blogger, be a journalist, there would be no way to monitor and address all the unexpected issues. There would be just too many bloggers to deal with, and each one is a potential friend or enemy, able to broadcast praise or contempt to potentially millions of people.

This is a nightmarish situation for PR communications people, because if they cannot influence the unruly blogosphere then what role remains for them?

Yes, there are going to be new ways of communications, new methods, new procedures. We know what some of those will be, but there is a heck of a lot that we don't know yet on how best to use media technologies such as blogs and wikis in the enterprise. The new rules are being forged right now and that's what makes things interesting.

Zombie media

Media technologies are changing the established media world too. Print publications won't go away but there are a lot of zombies out there--media companies not quite dead but not quite alive, continuing to stagger along. Many print based publications won't survive the new media sector that will emerge from these changing times.

Yes, the blogosphere is a mighty media beast, uncontrollable, it does what it wants, it can wreck havoc and wreck careers. But, if an individual blogger blogs in the blogosphere does anybody blog it?

That depends on the relationships readers have formed with the blogger, the "brand" experience that is created, the trusted relationships formed. These are exactly the same things that media brands such as BusinessWeek or CNET News.com focus on every day and it takes time to build media brands.

Ten more years of hard slog for Cnet

I met with Shelby Bonnie, CEO of News.com last summer, and he told me that after more than ten years of hard work building the CNET News.com media brand, there was probably another ten years to go before the media brand could be properly monetized.

"We just have to remember that building a media brand is a long process. The New York Times was not built in ten years," he said.

Individual bloggers have to build their media brand, just like the traditional media, and that takes time.

Negative and positive comments made by bloggers carry little weight either way--until a blogger establishes their credentials, their media brand. And that is a long process requiring a lot of diligent writing and reporting.

If you look closely, you'll find there are lots of experienced journalists, editors and publishers within the blogosphere such as Om Malik, Dan Gillmor, Chris Nolan, Nick Denton, who runs the fast growing Gawker Media blog empire out of his HQ loft in New York; so is John Battelle; and Jason Calcanis with his Weblogs, Inc collection of blogs.

Raising the bar

Growing numbers of media professionals within the blogosphere raises the bar for all because the competition for reader attention will be that much fiercer and editorial standards will be that much higher.

Building a personal blogging brand and cultivating a key readership within such an increasingly noisy media landscape will become increasingly difficult for individuals. We will see consolidation as blogs become group blogs and then become fully-fledged online news magazines.

There will be lots of these Internet 2.0 (net-two) news mags, in every area of human endeavor. There will be a worldwide flowering of the media landscape--at least that's what I see in my crystal (8) ball :-)

And consolidation will eventually make it easier for PR communications teams to apply standard methods of influence.